Drosophila melanogaster Transposon detection female thoracic single nuclear WGS with age

Across all metazoans, aging correlates with functional decline. One potential contributor this is the expression and mobilization of retrotransposons (RTs), which are mobile genetic elements capable of self-replication and insertion into new genomic locations. RT expression and copy number have been shown to increase with age within multiple model organisms. Our goal is to determine de novo RT insertion number and genomic location within somatic cells of Drosophila. By carrying out whole genome sequencing from individual thoracic nuclei from young and old female flies, new RT insertions do not increase with age, a novel discovery in the field.